Subject: IETF Sub-IP area: request for input (fwd)

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 21:55:26 +0100

This message was just posted to ietf-announce.
Since there may be people who read the ietf list faster than they read 
ietf-announce, I thought I'd just repost it here.

It requests that discussion take place on the IETF list.

                Harald

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: onsdag, desember 04, 2002 11:08:49 -0500
From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
To: IETF-Announce
Subject: IETF Sub-IP area: request for input

IETF SUB-IP area

 The IESG announced in November of 2000 that a new SUB-IP temporary
 pseudo-area would be formed as a part of an effort to develop a
 "systematic approach to dealing with what we used to describe as
 "sub-IP" technologies." At the time the IESG said:

 "Over the years the boundary between 'wires' and IP protocols has
 become harder to define and the interaction has become more intertwined.
 For example, what appear as 'wires' or 'circuits' in a virtual network
 may in fact be routed datagrams in an underlying IP network. The
 topology of dynamic underlying networks such as ATM and soon switched
 optical networks can interact with IP-level traffic engineering and
 routing. Additionally, with IETF technologies such as MPLS we are
 defining a whole new class of 'wires'."
 (http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/new-area.txt)

 After the December 2000 IETF meeting and taking into account the
 discussion at that meeting the IESG formed a "temporary" SUB-IP Area.
 IN the announcement of this action the IESG said:

 "It is temporary because the IESG believes that this concentrated
 sub-IP effort will likely be of short duration, on the order of a year
 or two. We feel that much of the work will be done by then, and the
 working groups closed. Any working groups that have not finished when
 the IESG determines that the area should be closed will be moved into
 existing the IETF areas where they seem to have the best fit." and "The
 IESG expects to review the development process and charters, however;
 if we conclude that this expectation is incorrect, we will need to make
 this area more formal. At that point, the nominating committee will be
 asked to supply dedicated area directors."
 (http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/sub_area.txt)

 Although the SUB-IP working groups have made considerable progress
 (with 7 RFCs published, another 12 IDs approved for publication, 9 IDs
 under IESG consideration and an additional 11 IDs having been passed to
 the ADs for their evaluation) their work is not yet done (with 53
 working group IDs currently in progress). It does appear that some of
 the working groups could finish the work in their charters over the next
 6 months but it could be a lot longer for others.

 Because the end is in sight for some of the working groups and since the
 IESG had generally assumed that the area would be a temporary one and
 the second anniversary of the creation of the SUB-IP area is next spring,
 analysis was started in the IESG to figure out which areas would be the
 best ones for the SUB-IP working groups to move to so that they could
 continue their work.

 As part of that analysis a SUB-IP area session was held during the IETF
 meeting in Atlanta where this topic was discussed.

 There was a spirited discussion during the session on the best path
 forward. The opinions ranged from following the distribution of
 working groups, to doing so with some specific changes to keeping the
 working groups in a separate SUB-IP area. A sense of the room was
 taken at the end of the discussion and that sense was very strongly
 that the SUB-IP Area should become a "long-term" (the description that
 was used during the consensus call) one and that the nomcom be asked
 to nominate a person (or persons) to become director(s) of the SUB-IP
 area.

 To help provide more information as input for the IESG discussion we
 would like to continue the discussion started in Atlanta on the mailing
 list. It is our intention to keep the discussion on the future of the
 SUB-IP area open, but short-lived, because it would be a very good idea
 to let the nomcom know ASAP what the future holds as they need to know
 what expertise is needed in the ADs for the existing areas and if they
 need to search for additional people.

 The IESG aim is to be able to let the nomcom know what the future of
 the SUB-IP work is by the end of the day of Thursday Dec 12th. That
 date was chosen because it is the date of the next IESG teleconference
 yet it provides some time for a public discussion.

 The options seem to be:
                 1/ move WGs (back) to permanent areas: migrate the SUB-IP
 working groups to other IETF areas sometime soon, likely before next
 summer and close the SUB-IP area. Also, reconstitute the SUB-IP (and/or
 other) directorates to ensure the continued coordination between the
 remaining WGs.

                 2/ establish a long-term area: decide that the SUB-IP
 area will be a long-term one, clearly define its charter, and ask the
 nomcom to select one or two people to be Area Directors

                 3/ status quo: continue the SUB-IP Area as a temporary,
 ad-hoc effort, much as it has been, with the IESG selecting two sitting
 ADs to continue the effort that Bert & Scott have been doing. But maybe
 give more responsibility to the working group's technical advisors,
 normally the AD from the area where the working group might otherwise
 live.

 Data points for the discussion:

 DP1. It does look like a number of the SUB-IP working groups will be
 finishing up their main work in the next year and be ready to be closed
 until it is time to revise the RFCs based on experience or to advance
 them on the standards track. The groups that should be finishing up
 include ipo, gsmp and tewg. That would leave mpls, ppvpn and ccamp.

 DP2. WGs in SUB-IP or the work pursued in them came from existing
 well-established areas, i.e., tewg came from OPS, gsmp, mpls (with ccamp
 and ppvpn as its derivatives) came from RTG.

 DP3. There's still a need for technical oversight from permanent areas,
 so some WGs have a technical advisor--normally the AD from the area
 where the working group might otherwise live (e.g. CCAMP, and PPVPN
 with a RTG AD as the TA).

 DP4. SUB-IP directorate was very useful when the area was just created.
 It is currently passive and WGs continue operating just fine.

 DP5. The sense of the SUB-IP session in Atlanta was that the SUB-IP
 Area was working and there is no compelling reason to break it up.
 There is a need to clarify the charters of some of the working groups
 so that the different groups understand what the division of tasks are
 but it is hard to identify what problem would be solved by breaking up
 the area.

 DP6. Extensions to specific IETF technologies should be done in the
 working groups responsible for those technologies based on requirements
 provided by other working groups. For example, extensions to OSPF
 should be done by the OSPF working group based on input from other
 working groups or individuals rather than being done someplace else.

 Discussions about the options:

 1/ Move WGs (back) to permanent areas and close the area

 For:

 Each WG within SUB-IP definitely has a strong feature that maps it to a
 given permanent area [1]. The property that logically holds them together
 in SUB-IP now is the need for coordination wrt the technologies that are
 normally considered below the IP layer. While this was indeed necessary
 right after SUB-IP creation, DP4 suggests that the goal has been achieved
 and the focus is shifting back to coordination with permanent areas (e.g.,
 DP3, as well as the fact that RTG WGs are already dealing with SUB-IP
 related extensions). DP1 suggests that there will be about three active
 WGs within a year; at least two of them can be argued to belong in RTG
 area (where they originally came from, see DP2), so it wouldn't make a
 lot of sense to have two separate areas overlapping so considerably.
 PPVPN does not map strongly to any area, however it doesn't map strongly
 to SUB-IP either (MPLS is just one possible encapsulation method)

 Against:

 DP5 suggests that the feeling in the room was against closing the area,
 though there was also some support for the idea that moving MPLS and
 CCAMP to RTG would be a fine idea if the area were to be closed. The
 feeling was that the area has been working and that there is no strong
 argument that there is a need to change things at this time.

 2/ Establish a long-term area

 For:

 DP5 suggests that the community believes this is a good idea. See also
 the "Against" for option 1. In addition the opinion was expressed that
 having a specific area with specifically assigned management,
 knowledgeable in the field, would be an advantage. In addition, new
 SUP-IP work may develop in the future and it would be good to have a
 home for it.

 Against:

 See "For" arguments for option 1 above. Also, there was an assumption
 when the area was formed that it would be temporary and the size of the
 IESG is near max effective size. It is also expected that if the nomcom
 needs to find an AD(s) for SUB-IP, the set of required skills would
 be extremely similar to those needed for the RTG area, which again
 brings up the question of whether it makes sense to have two areas
 with so similar expertise scopes.

 3/ Status quo

 For:

 DP5 suggests that the way the area operates is fine and does not need
 fixing at this time. As DP1 predicts, there may not be many active
 SUB-IP working groups within a year and it may be best to wait until
 a few of the working groups finish their work and close before deciding
 on the long term direction for this work. The IESG would decide which
 ADs would be asked to manage the area in March.

 Against:

   A decision has to be made sooner or later, delaying the decision will
 not make it any easier to make.

 The IESG would like to hear from the community on this topic - please
 direct your comments to the [email-masked] list.

 The IESG will discuss the matter in its next telechat on December 12.

 --------------------------------------------------
 [1] possible WG to area mappings:

         - IPO has the IP-over-foo property, which is usually addressed
 in INT,

         - GSMP came from RTG

         - MPLS (aside from the fact that it came from RTG) deals with a
 technology that is arguably another IP forwarding paradigm and relies
 heavily on regular routing functionality and/or protocols.

         - CCAMP works on a generalized version of MPLS, which could map
 it to RTG as well

         - TEWG came from O&M

         - PPVPN: suggestions have been made of INT, because its tunneling
 which is closest to INT, RTG because some of the suggested discovery and
 VPN routing mechanisms, and TSV, because its related to PWE3 (in TSV
 because of congestion control worries)

---------- End Forwarded Message ----------

---

From: Aaron Falk <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 2002 09:53:55 -0800

I've only heard secondhand about the activities in the sub-ip area and
so I can't offer direct feedback.  However, in
<http://www.ietf.org//mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg18130.html>, John
Klensin makes the following point:

   (4) There is a class of WG for which the "bounded outcome" model
   will, fairly clearly, fail.  And, unfortunately, such WGs seem to
   be on the increase.  It has become common to have a situation in
   which a group of people with narrowly-focused interests come
   together and insist, quite loudly and persistently, that they want
   to do a particular piece of work within the IETF.  Such groups are
   often approved by the IESG: whether to give them a chance, or
   because turning them down is too painful, or because the work might
   actually be useful.  But, unless we can devise rules that prevent
   such groups from being chartered, or that kill them immediately if
   they cannot involve a broad spectrum of the IETF community in their
   work (and involve them actively), then presuming that their output
   represents community approval, is extremely dangerous to the goal
   of producing only IETF protocols that are competent on the public
   Internet.  My observations of such groups is that it is often
   difficult or impossible to get them to focus on even the
   applicability (or security or scaling) boundaries of their work; it
   is difficult to hold the time delays that occur when the IESG
   identifies and tries to remedy those problems in order to produce a
   competent, or competently-bounded and documented, protocol as an
   IESG failure because of excessive processing time. 

I would like the IESG to consider if the work in the sub-ip area could
be considered to meet the description above and, if so, whether it is
endemic to the area.  (I can easily imagine this is so, although, as I
say above, I have no facts to back this up.)  If sub-ip represents
technologies that don't, and will never, get involvement from a "broad
spectrum of the IETF community," we shouldn't institutionalize it.  In
this case, I would be in favor of letting the area expire when the
working groups complete their current charters (option 3).

--aaron

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 17:02:01 -0500

Aaron> I can easily imagine this is so,  although, as I say above, I have no
Aaron> facts to back this up. 

Wouldn't it be nice if people  based their feedback on facts, rather than on
what they imagine!  Well, at least you're honest about it ;-)

Aaron> If  sub-ip represents technologies  that don't,  and will  never, get
Aaron> involvement  from  a  "broad  spectrum  of the  IETF  community,"  we
Aaron> shouldn't institutionalize it. 

How would you define "a broad spectrum of the IETF community"?

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 15:41:05 -0800

Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
...
> IETF SUB-IP area

...
> 6 months but it could be a lot longer for others.

It would be useful to have some statistics on these RFCs. Have any been 
other than Informational?

Further, generation of IDs isn't a definition of success; some WGs (at 
least one in particular in the list above) are blackholes into which 
every free-radical ID seems to find purchase, regardless of utility, 
appropriateness, etc. - and often despite explicit AD feedback to the 
contrary.

> meeting in Atlanta where this topic was discussed.

IMO:

    1. most of the groups have to work primarily with
     another area anyway.

     2. PPVPN is the exception, because it's creating an
     entirely new Internet. As such, it belongs under Internet,
     with liasons to transport, routing, etc.

     3. The I in IETF means that the IETF shouldn't be working
     sub-IP anyway. Many of these discussions (layer 2 VPNs, in
     particular) would be better served by occuring within the context
     of their original host organization (i.e., IEEE for ethernet over
     IP), since it was those organizations that defined those LANs,
     and they who would best comment on the correctness (or lack)
     of proposed solutions.

     Solutions in those areas should be brought back to us only
     to the extent and when it is clear what group is affected,
     e.g., transport, routing, etc.

SUB-IP is currently a place for WGs to hide from the areas they should 
be working more closely with; the groups have little if anything in 
common or overlap.

The case needs to be made STRONGLY in favor; the default here cannot be 
the status quo for its own sake.

> other) directorates to ensure the continued coordination between the

Some observations regarding some of the points:

...

> Area was working and there is no compelling reason to break it up.

This was polling the choir. Most attendees are vested heavily in one of 
the WGs, and the consensus of the WGs is to stay put. IMO, absent a VERY 
strong, concrete justification to the contrary, this experiment should 
be declared over.

> but it is hard to identify what problem would be solved by breaking up

It is critical to ask the converse; what problem is solved by creating a 
new area?

The default is, as per the finite-timescale creation of SUB-IP, that 
doing 'nothing' means there is no SUB-IP area anymore. Now, in light of 
that, identify the problem solved by creating an area at this time.

So far, all I've seen is "yeah, but why change what is currently 
working?" I'm all for that. What worked was a finite-lifetime area, and 
the default is to cease on schedule.

> working groups or individuals rather than being done someplace else.
...

> not make it any easier to make.

Again, the status quo is to cease SUB-IP on schedule. Creating a 
temporary area does NOT create eminent domain for a permanent area. If 
it does, we'll never get another temporary area off the ground again, 
since it'll be considered potentially permanent at the time of the 
experiment.

Consider it ended. Now argue in favor of creation.

Joe

---

From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 11:13:40 +1100

Joe Touch wrote:
	[..]
> Consider it ended. Now argue in favor of creation.

I concur, and would also like to see arguments about the Sub-IP area
cast in terms of justifying its re-creation.

cheers,
gja
-- 
Grenville Armitage
http://caia.swin.edu.au

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 09:08:24 -0500

In thinking about the issues of temporary areas generally and 
this one in particular, I've got pair of concerns that have not 
been mentioned so far:

(i) There is always the possibility that Nomcom selections and 
decisions will change the balance of consensus of the IESG on 
any particular issue, especially an organizational one.  If 
there are plausible odds that a "new" IESG would reach a 
significantly different decision than the "old" one, the 
decision should, if possible, probably be left to the "new" 
group, rather than sticking them with sorting out the 
implications of a decision with which they might not agree.  I 
don't know what to suggest about this at this stage, but I think 
it would be good for the community to give general guidance to 
the IESG that, when possible, the period between the last IETF 
meeting of one year and the first one of the next is not the 
ideal time to be making organizational decisions.

(ii) If a temporary area extends for more than a year, and one 
or more of the associated ADs comes up for renomination, the 
Nomcom has a dilemma:

	-- they can evaluate possible candidates knowing that
	some AD will need to do double duty (in two areas), both
	with regard to competencies and with regard to available
	time.
	
	-- they can ignore the temporary area entirely, assuming
	that their responsibility is only to deal with the
	permanent areas and that the IESG will just have to sort
	out any consequences, reorganizing itself if necessary.

Of the two, the second is probably preferable, but neither is 
really ideal.   I suspect it argues against long-lived temporary 
areas.

    john

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 09:43:41 -0500

Joe> Many of these discussions (layer 2 VPNs, in particular) would be better
Joe> served  by   occuring  within  the  context  of   their  original  host
Joe> organization  (i.e., IEEE  for ethernet  over IP),  since it  was those
Joe> organizations that defined those LANs,  and they who would best comment
Joe> on the correctness (or lack) of proposed solutions. 

IEEE is  certainly not the  right place to  determine how to  carry ethernet
data and  control frames  over IP networks.   Nor is  it the right  place to
design the auto-discovery mechanisms for  figuring out which IP systems need
to  connect to  which  other IP  systems in  order  to provide  layer 2  VPN
services.  Nor is it the right place to determine how the characteristics of
IP networks may  be leveraged to optimize  for layer 2 VPNs.  Nor  is it the
right place  to address the scalability, security,  and applicability issues
of layer 2 VPNs over IP  networks.  In fact, the IEEE 802.1 participants who
are following the  layer 2 VPN work have not even  claimed that these issues
fall within their scope. 

While I am not a big fan of emulating ethernet networks over IP networks, this
is a pretty clear example of a topic that has both IETF and IEEE components,
and which needs attention from BOTH groups.

---

From: avri doria <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 2002 16:37:02 +0100

> nomcom to select one or two people to be Area Directors

I spoke on this at the Sub-IP area meeting.  I beleive that the Area
provides focus for a class of problem that is not going to go away.  In
fact, as the versions of IP are adapted to more underlying structures,
including the optical sub-strucutre today and wireless sub-structures
tomorrow, there will alwasy be a class of problem that is best
categorized as the sub-ip problem.  In fact throughout the history of
the IETF there have been such issues, e.g. PPP, it is just that they
were easily hosted in other areas due to their relative simplicity.  As
this class of issue grows, however, I think it would benefit from the
focus only obtainable its own area.  It may even be reasonable to go
through the working groups in some other areas and see if some don't fit
better into a generic sub-IP area.

One further point:

Should the WGs be parcelled out to various groups, GSMP should be
considered as a candidate for the O&M area. Though GSMP was originally
in the Routing area this was becasue the MPLS area was there.  As it is
a management protocol for sub-ip entities I think the best alternate
placement for it is the management area.  I obviously support it
remaining in the permanent Sub-IP area should that be an option.

a.
-- 
Avri Doria
http://www.sm.luth.se/~avri/

---

From: Frank Kastenholz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 10:03:59 -0500

All the stuff in the "sub-ip" area is a combination of
applications running over IP and lower-layer services
over which IP (and presumably anything else -- after
all what do the "MP" stand for in MPLS?) runs.

The logic which directs that these things be standardized
in the IETF could be used to direct that _any_ lower-layer
technology be standardized in the IETF.

There is also logic that says that these technologies
are "important" to the Internet and, in order to ensure
that they "do the right thing", they should be standardized
in the IETF. This logic is also in error. First, these
efforts have evolved into some of the worst and most
hideous examples of bloatware that I've ever seen. Second,
there are many technologies that are important to the
operation of the Internet -- such as the spacing of the
screw holes in the racks into which the equipment is
mounted -- yet we don't standardize them...

Frank Kastenholz

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 08:15:16 -0800

Eric Rosen wrote:
> data and  control frames  over IP networks.

They defined ethernet. It is they who would best determine how to carry 
ethernet over another protocol and keep current ethernet correctness.

Certainly IETF-ers would be useful participants, but keep in mind that 
transport protocol discussions usually focus at the transport layer (in 
this case, ethernet) with experts thereof, not at the IP layer.

...
> and which needs attention from BOTH groups. 

That may be the case, i.e., case for a joint group, but this is clearly 
outside sole-IETF scope per se.

Joe

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 12:46:08 -0500

On Fri, Dec 06, 2002 08:15:16AM -0800, Joe Touch allegedly wrote:
> Eric Rosen wrote:
> >IEEE is  certainly not the  right place to  determine how to  carry
> >ethernet data and  control frames  over IP networks.
> 
> They defined ethernet. It is they who would best determine how to
> carry ethernet over another protocol and keep current ethernet
> correctness.

To be more specific, if anything the IEEE would want to do to carry
Ethernet over IP would require modifications to protocols which the IETF
feels protective about, the work should be done under the auspices of
the IETF.  They should give us requirements -- we know our protocols
better than they do.

---

From: Yu-Shun Wang <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 10:26:40 -0800

> the IETF.  They should give us requirements -- we know our protocols

By the same argument, they also know their protocols (L2) better than
we do.

It should be the other way around regarding protocol modification, IMHO.
Running L2 over IP is putting protocols (L2) on top of an environment
they are not designed for. The most critical ones being the latency or
timing constraints most L2 protocols have. It does not really require
modifying IP per se, because you can not get around latency in current
Internet. So one would most likely end up relaxing or changing L2
protocols to adapt to the new (and unfit for L2) environment which is
the Internet.

So if anything, IEEE should be worry more about IETF changing L2 protocols
in this case than the other way around. I personally think L2 over IP is
outside the scope of IETF, at best you can put them in Transport because
that's the result of protocol stacking. Join work with IEEE in this case
is definitely a must.

yushun.

-- 
____________________________________________________________________________
Yu-Shun Wang <[email-masked]>               Information Sciences Institute
                                            University of Southern California

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 10:40:09 -0800

> the IETF.  They should give us requirements -- we know our protocols

Certainly - IF there are MODS to IP or other IETF protocols. So far, all 
I've noticed are mods to the semantics of Ethernet.

Joe

---

From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 19:12:44 -0500

>normally the AD from the area where the working group might otherwise

After reading through the discussions and thinking about the IETF needs as 
a whole, I want to propose a 4th alternative (which is a merge of the opt 2 
and 3):

a) Sunset the area with a final decision point as 12/31/2003 and a closing 
date of 03/01/2004.  No further WGs will be chartered in this area.
b) Ask the Nomcom to appoint 1 area director not from the current set of 
ADs for a term of 1 year. Term would run March 02 to March 03.

I think this approach would accomplish two things:  1) The area would be 
legitimized for the period of operation and that would bring it under 
normal IETF procedures.  2) We (the IETF) would have an opportunity to 
apprentice/train a new AD in a lower stress/load environment than the usual 
area.  In Dec 03, if there is sufficient reason to continue the area, the 
NOMCOM can act to continue the appointment or to appoint another or other 
ADs as well as more fully define the charter.  If not, the area can close 
in March.

Mike

---

From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 09:43:45 -0500

I concur with StJohns.  This is a better phrased way of saying the same
thing that I was trying to say.

If SUB-IP Area is to continue past March 2003, then its AD(s) need to be
appointed specifically for that by Nomcom (and ought not be responsible
for more than one area).  If the IESG believes the Area will really 
close
within one year, the IESG should tell Nomcom to make those appointments
for one year rather than two.

This is the only approach fully consistent with documented IETF open
processes.

To do otherwise is to continue with a less-transparent-than-needed 
approach
to selecting the ADs for that Area.

Ran

On Monday, Dec 9, 2002, at 19:12 America/Montreal, Michael StJohns 
wrote:
> After reading through the discussions and thinking about the IETF 
> needs as a whole, I want to propose a 4th alternative (which is a 
> merge of the opt 2 and 3):
>
> a) Sunset the area with a final decision point as 12/31/2003 and a 
> closing date of 03/01/2004.  No further WGs will be chartered in this 
> area.
> b) Ask the Nomcom to appoint 1 area director not from the current set 
> of ADs for a term of 1 year. Term would run March 02 to March 03.
>
> I think this approach would accomplish two things:  1) The area would 
> be legitimized for the period of operation and that would bring it 
> under normal IETF procedures.  2) We (the IETF) would have an 
> opportunity to apprentice/train a new AD in a lower stress/load 
> environment than the usual area.  In Dec 03, if there is sufficient 
> reason to continue the area, the NOMCOM can act to continue the 
> appointment or to appoint another or other ADs as well as more fully 
> define the charter.  If not, the area can close in March.
>
> Mike
>
> _______________________________________________
> This message was passed through [email-masked], 
> which is a sublist of [email-masked]. Not all messages are passed. 
> Decisions on what to pass are made solely by Raffaele D'Albenzio.
>

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:49:16 -0500

> ADs for a term of 1 year. Term would run March 02 to March 03.

..

> ADs as well as more fully define the charter.  If not, the area can close 

This is why I think a lot of this is moot.  What we actually do is going
to depend on the state of things at the instant the decision needs to be
made.  If there is reason to keep the area going then we will.  If not
we won't.  Right now there is no consensus.  The WGs will take the same
amount of effort regardless of what area they are in.  Consider (1) the
tendency of committees (that's us) to focus on the little problems
because the big problems are awkward, at least in committees, and (2)
the observation that the decisions that matter the least take the most
time.  Don't we have more important things to do?

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:54:11 -0500

I might as well chime in on the actual question that was asked. 

I guess I disagree with the majority of folks working in the sub-IP area.  I
never thought  it made  any sense to  move all  those working groups  out of
their  original areas  into  a "sub-IP"  area,  and I  never understood  the
"sub-IP area  hourglass architecture"  that was foisted  on us by  the IESG.
So I've never  thought that it makes much sense to  have a separate "sub-IP"
area, and I don't think it makes sense  to keep it as a separate area in the
future. 

The advantage of maintaining the status quo is that everyone has gotten used
to the current ADs, and most  people figure that any change will make things
worse.  When new  ADs get involved, they tend  to "reinterpret" the charters
and  disrupt the work.   But if  one ignores  the possibility  of short-term
personality issues, I  think it would be better  to choose established areas
for the MPLS, CCAMP, and PPVPN WGs.

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From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 12:03:19 -0500

> ADs for a term of 1 year. Term would run March 02 to March 03.

I cannot speak for the nomcom, but I will note that this would be
asking nomcom to take on the responsibility of appointing another area
director, *after* the call-for-candidates window has closed (the
deadline for suggesting a candidate for an IAB and IESG slot was the
last day of the Atlanta IETF meeting).

Hence, if a proposal involves additional work for the nomcom at this
late date, I would strongly urge that the Phil, as this year's nomcom
chair, be asked for his advice and consent before such a plan is
adopted.

						- Ted

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From: Michael StJohns <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 19:12:44 -0500

Mike

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From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:54:11 -0500

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From: "Theodore Ts'o" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 12:03:19 -0500

- Ted